Chapter 43: "I'm Not, I Didn't."

Chapter 043: "I'm Not, I Didn't."

Not long after, the world was completely lit up.

The sunlight spilled out from the horizon, lighting up the world. It made the Mangir mountain range look as if it had a veil of gold covering it. It was a beautiful sight.

However, within the beauty of nature, there hid uncountable dangers.

The diurnal demonic beasts would start becoming active around this time, creating a number of vicious roars echoing all across the mountain range.

However, Vivian's party ended up smoothly reaching their destination without issues.

"Alright, we're here."

Vivian who was at the very front stopped and announced to her teammates behind her.

This made everyone relax their tense concentration. Or at least breath a sigh of relief.

"Finally here huh?"

Melika was nearly crying as she huffed in exhaustion.

"Are you alright? Melika?"

Lumia helped hold Melika up with an expression of worry.

"You should train your body a bit, Melika."

Diere calmly spoke as she stood behind the two girls like she's acting as a rearguard.

"But, I'm a mage."

Melika instantly puffed up her cheeks.

Due to needing to reach their destination before the demonic beasts became active, during their journe, Vivian's party underwent an extremely exhausting force march.

Under that kind of situation, putting aside everyone else, Melika ended up gasping for breath not long into it, and she almost ended up unable to move.

Based on the information that Vivian gave out earlier, this elf girl is a pure mage. When she levels up, her magic power increase is the greatest, but her physical stats seem no real different from a normal girl.

Given that, having this delicate elven beauty rush with all her speed through the mountains is going to be very rough on her. If not for Lumia helping her along and even carrying her a part of the way, the party wouldn't have been able to reach their destination this quickly.

Only...

(You really can't judge a book by it's covers)

Shien who was in the backmost position of the party shifted his gaze towards Lumia who was worriedly holding up Melika.

(Although she looks timid and weak, but not only was she able to keep up with everyone, she could even carry someone without going out of breath.)

Shien wouldn't have been surprised if Vivian and Diere showed such capabilities.

After all, it was obvious from a glance that the two of them are fairly high leveled. Plus, they're not mages like Melika. The impression they gave Shien this whole time was that they were strong women, so such something like that would have been natural.

But Lumia's behavior can't be compared to those two. From since the day before, she looked like a weak and timid follow along. If she wasn't hanging by Diere's side, she was hanging about Melika's. She practically had "I'm weak, please don't bully me" written on her face, but she ended up giving such an unexpected showing, which made Shien feel like he made a misjudgment.

Of course, Shien also found Melika's own behavior a bit surprising.

"Is there no magic that could strengthen one's own body?"

Shien tentatively asked such a thing.

It's one thing to ask, but Shien never really hoped for a response from Melika. He just wanted Vivian to give him an explanation.

After all, Vivian's the only person in this party who isn't guarded against him.

However, something contrary to Shien's expectations happened.

"Body strengthening belongs to the realm of support magic. I never learned the [Magic - Support] skill, so I can't use it at all." Melika spoke while still upset, "What I'm good at is fire and ice magic, so I only learned [Magic - Fire] and [Magic - Ice] skills, and I've never learned support magic."

Those words made a hush come over the surroundings.

Shien froze. His face showed his surprise.

Vivian, Diere, and Lumia also paused and looked at Melika with astonishment.

Melika only then realized just what she just did, and her puffed up face starting showing some panic.

"N-No... That... I..."

Melika just stuttered out some words in a panic.

Seeing that, Shien scratched his face and gave a slightly embarrassed smile at that along with a few words.

"Thank you for your explanation."

Shien basically gave Melika a way out.

"Y-you're welcome."

Melika's face started turning red.

The originally calm atmosphere started turning a bit strange.

Only a bit later did Vivian break up this strange atmosphere.

"Let's collect the spring water first." Vivian spoke to Melika like she found something funny, "Melika, can I ask you to do it?"

"Y-Yes!"

Melika immediately rushed over as if letting go of a weight.

"W-wait! Melika! Be careful of demonic beasts!"

Lumia chased after her in a hurry.

"Really..."

Diere whispered something and followed along as if wanting to protect Lumia and Melika.

Shien and Vivian were instantly left by themselves.

"Well?' Vivian spoke teasingly, "Melika's quite cute right?"

"Cute?" Shien immediately rolled his eyes at Vivian, "It was just one exchange, the f-, what does that have to do with cuteness?"

Shien almost broke out in a swear and broke character as someone honest and obedient.

"Isn't that fine?" Vivian didn't pay any attention to Shien's sudden change of words. She just spoke like she was talking to herself, "At least, this lets you know that they don't actually dislike you as much as you might think."

"... Perhaps so." Shien muttered, "But, that's just Melika, right?"

There's still Diere and Lumia. One's cold and silent, the other's timid and fearful. Don't they lack any sign of wanting to get to know Shien?

"is that so?" Vivian spoke meaninfully, "Perhaps, there's someone else who has already lowered their guard against you, and you don't don't know about it is all?"

With those words, Vivian left Shien and started walking towards her companions.

"Someone else?"

Shien was completely befuddled.

That's a thing?

Why don't I know?

It's not like I did anything special, right?

It can't be one of those cliched "invisible conquest" developments?

"Don't..."

Shien wasn't happy with that at all.

Otherwise, back when he used to heavily criticize that kind of romantic development in novels, wouldn't all of criticism be rebounded on himself now?

For him to become one of those protagonists that he hated so much? And it's one of those ultra dense and type to get conquered too?

Shit... That's the worst.

"I'm not. I didn't. Don't talk nonsense."

Shien acted like he was trying to explain himself.

"What are you doing? Come on!"

At that time, Vivian's voice came from in front.

"Coming!"

Shien immediately got himself together and ran over.